Cigarettes And Corporations Are Hard To Quit (But They’re Killing You)

I don’t try to tell anyone they should quit smoking because most anyone who’s a smoker already knows they should quit. Most anyone who smokes realizes they’ve fallen into a trap from which they are unable to escape.

What I might do, though, is let them know I was once trapped like they were and was able to escape. And I would definitely let them know that in the end I quit not with the sense that I was giving something up but with the sense that I was finally free from an unhealthy relationship. And I would let them know that every day of my life since has been better because I was able to escape from that prison of addiction.

The worst part of smoking was knowing that I was not in control of my own life. It wasn’t simply that I was stuck in an addiction, it was that I was the jailer and I had the key, and I somehow still couldn’t step out from it. Cigarettes did not just simply rule my life, they did so with my consent. Quitting smoking gave me the feeling that I was indeed in control of my life and that I was not simply free but in charge.

I’ve experienced something similar with corporate culture.

Of course, with corporate culture — and by that I don’t simply mean the culture to be found within a given corporation, but the culture that has developed as a result of corporate influence in our country and the world — it’s different. Unlike with a drug, you can’t simply quit it. It will take all of us working together to quit it. As it now stands, it is like a cloud of smoke that hangs in the very air we breathe. While we can quit smoking ourselves, we cannot avoid the fumes exhaled by everyone and that are spewed from great big corporate smokestacks. But still, being aware of the effect it is having on our lives and determining to do whatever we can to free ourselves from it is an important part of freeing ourselves from engaging in a destructive behavior.

Another thing that is different from an addiction to corporate culture and a drug is that unlike with a drug, we will never be able to do it individually. When quitting a drug dependency, it is important to disentangle our lives from other addicts. The opposite is true with corporate culture. In order to free ourselves, it is necessary to help free others. Of course, the 12 Step Program does rely on mentoring, so it is not all that different. And the person who is working to free himself from the corporate culture will inevitably find himself walking a different path from those who still cling to it, so a certain distancing will be inevitable.

Lastly, the addiction to corporate culture is different in that there is no such thing as going cold turkey. At least not realistically, at least not at this point in time. I suppose it is possible to live as a complete hermit, but it is neither realistic nor helpful to the overall goal. For this reason, we must treat an addiction to corporate culture as we would an addiction to food. Whereas we might envision a day where we can utterly free ourselves from any kind of relationship with corporate culture, for the moment we cannot do without it any more than we can do without eating. Therefore we need to find some healthy relationship with corporate culture.

This “healthy” relationship with corporate culture is different than a healthy relationship with food, though, in that we can and should be able to create a wonderful relationship with the foods that feed us, whereas our relationship with corporate culture must be recognized as one of unwanted necessity. In all our dealings with corporations and the mentality such dealings create, we must view them as we would a jailer who brings us our meals while we are in prison. We must never view the jailer as anything other than an oppressor that stands between us and our freedom to acquire our sustenance through mutually agreeable means. And we must always, whenever possible, attempt to reduce our reliance on this unhealthy and unequal relationship.

That’s where I’m at now. I’m not a role model, no shining example of how one person is able to take on the system and win. I am not free, in that I am forced to rely on corporations for so much of my day to day necessities. But I am free, at least in my mind, in my attitude, and in my intentions. Most importantly, I am free in that I see quite clearly my relationship with the corporations I am forced to deal with and the corporate culture in which I must live. I seek every opportunity to reduce and eliminate the need for corporations to control my food supply, my housing situation, how my government functions, and the myriad other ways in which corporations have placed themselves between my interactions with my fellow humans. I am not free but I have envisioned my freedom. I am still dependent but am working a program that will help me to break unhealthy behavior patterns. And like those days when I was unable to quit smoking but was still able to reduce the amount of cigarettes I smoked, I feel better for the effort.